


Like Hell We're Soulmates

by May1974



Series: Swagger Bishie Collection [2]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Confusion, Fluff, M/M, Not Beta Read, Not Phantom Planet Compliant (Danny Phantom), One Shot, One-Shot, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, danny phantom - Freeform, dash is confused, dash is freaked, swagger bishie, these boys need to be better at communicating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:01:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24785839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/May1974/pseuds/May1974
Summary: It's not possible. How can they possibly be soulmates? Neither one know what the fuck is going on.
Relationships: Dash Baxter & Danny Fenton, Dash Baxter/Danny Fenton
Series: Swagger Bishie Collection [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1792732
Comments: 14
Kudos: 288





	Like Hell We're Soulmates

**Author's Note:**

> I tried my hand at a soulmate AU for the rare-pair Swagger Bishie. It's a little bit of a cliffhanger, but I think this one-shot is long enough.

■●■●■●■

**Like Hell We’re Soulmates**   
_(March 4, 2005)_

The whole soulmate thing was bullshit in Danny’s opinion. To be honest, he hadn’t expected to ever wake up to his soul mark. It was only supposed to happen to humans. Other animals, no matter how intelligent of a species they were, had anything remotely close to soul marks. As far as Danny had seen, ghosts didn’t have soul marks, either. Maybe they did once, when they were alive and had a life unhindered by obsession, but in death they didn’t find soulmates.

So, when he went through the accident and turned into a halfa – half ghost, half human – he was thoroughly convinced that he had fucked up the only chance he would ever have with a future partner. The thought saddened him, but he knew it was inevitable.

Even if he did find his soulmate, he couldn’t knowingly welcome them into his dangerous life.

Imagine his surprise when he was getting ready for bed and phased through the walls, floating to the bathroom, and reached for the sink tap – only to see a prominent mark on his forearm.

He cried-out and phased halfway through the wall, spinning wildly in the air. He barely had time to hit the ground before his parents burst into the bathroom, ecto-guns at the ready. And he really couldn’t bring himself to keep an eye on the weapons because, right there on his arm, was his soul mark. It was his soulmate’s name, written in blocky letters.

And even though he was dead, and he really didn’t need to breathe, he felt suffocated.

He kept blinking, hoping to will away the name. He didn’t answer his parents as they fretted about him, because his eyes were laser-focused on his soul mark.

> **DASH BAXTER**

■●■●■●■

Dash knew that someone’s soul mark didn’t appear until the right time. Usually, it was around someone’s sixteenth birthday, though it wasn’t uncommon to hear of stories where people didn’t get their soul marks until their twenties. But he didn’t want to wait.

As much as he repeatedly told others that he didn’t care – “ _just means I get to time to explore more_ ,” he had told them – he felt very strongly about soulmates. He had seen how things turned out if you denied your soul mark, his parents were a testament of that, and he was prepared to put everything into his relationship with his soulmate. He was determined to not fuck-up.

Nevertheless, with March Break approaching, he couldn’t help but think about his soul mark almost with an obsession. He would be turning sixteen in July, and he had foolishly hoped that with his approaching birthday, his soul mark would magically appear.

Football practice finished, he headed into the changeroom to shower and change.

It was late – probably after seven, because Tetslaff was like that, and it was Friday night – and he reached for his towel to wipe the soap and water from his eyes.

He was hurriedly tugging on his t-shirt when his arm felt funny.

He was the last boy in the changeroom because the other boys didn’t like to use the showers, but he liked the isolation they gave him. It also gave him more time to spend away from home. Slipping on his sweatpants, he distractedly glanced over at his arm – thinking maybe he had a bruise, or scratch, and it was just itching – and almost dropped his sports bag. He backed up into the metal lockers, heart stopping with shock.

Because there was his soul mark. On his forearm. It was small and written elegantly, a mix between cursive and print. It was perfect. It was horrible. He almost couldn’t bear to read the name.

> _Daniel Fenton_

■●■●■●■

Going to school was the last thing Danny Fenton wanted to do. He ditched his friends in favour of flying instead, and halfway there he almost lost his guts and turned intangible and let the earth swallow him whole. He’d had the whole weekend to get used to the idea – for the shock to wear off – but he wasn’t sure he would ever accept his soul mark. It didn’t help that for two days, two days which his soulmate most definitely had his name on his forearm, too, the other never tried to contact or reach out to him. Admittedly, he hadn’t either – but that was besides the point.

He prayed.

For what, he didn’t know.

Maybe for a ghost to show up and start wreaking havoc, and at least that way he would have a justified reason to miss school and avoid _him_.

But of course, the _one day_ Danny actually wants a ghost to attack, it doesn’t happen.

What the fuck?

Nonetheless, once in the building, Danny did everything within his power to avoid his bully. Thank god he had such awesome friends, or they would have been pissed that he was disappearing all day, backtracking through the halls, and turning corners when least convenient just because he saw _him_. He had even gone for a wardrobe change, switching out his usual cotton t-shirt for a long-sleeved sweater that would hopefully keep his soul mark covered for the day.

But despite his best efforts, it couldn’t be avoided forever, because Danny shared last period with Dash. History with Mr. Lancer. He was ready to just die – but properly this time.

He was halfway down the hall, alone because he didn’t have either Sam or Tucker in his last period, when his ghost sense went off. He didn’t know whether to break down in frustration or relief. He quickly ducked into the janitor’s closet and transformed, and then focused on tracking down the ghost.

Fifteen minutes later, after chasing the Box Ghost through the halls and yelling obscenities at him because he was tired of fighting him day in and day out, Danny finally made it to class. He wasn’t happy about it, because showing up late would definitely put him on the spot, but he had never outright skipped school just because he wanted to. And technically, he was still alive. So, with no excuse and feeling guilty about even the thought of skipping, he drearily made his way upstairs to history.

He pushed through the door and felt his cheeks heat up as all eyes turned to him, including Mr. Lancer’s, who promptly gave him a detention for being late. He tried to shrug it off – it wasn’t unexpected.

To his utter horror and rage, Dash wasn’t even in class.

He had been worked-up about last period for no reason – Dash had apparently skipped.

■●■●■●■

As it turns out, detention was what Danny should have been dreading. There were three time slots for detention, and not many students were forced to stay after school when they could just as easily spend their detention during lunch or during a spare. As it was, there was only a handful of students in the classroom when he arrived, but most of them were from the upper grades. Danny was the only tenth grader there. Feeling as red as a tomato, because he usually wasn’t alone like this, he walked past Mr. Lancer and dropped his detention slip on his desk.

He took his usual seat in the back and immediately put his head down to his desk, figuring he might as well get some sleep out of it. He was halfway through swearing to himself that he wouldn’t leave detention if a ghost showed up, because that was why he was here, when the door slammed open and another student entered.

Danny didn’t bother raising his head from his desk. It was just another burn-out, like the rest of them.

But then the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and his left forearm began to thrum with energy the way it usually would when he charged up an ecto-blast.

He promptly snapped up and looked with wide eyes to the front.

He found Dash Baxter staring straight back at him, and he found it slightly disconcerting that he couldn’t decipher the difference between him being angry and him being shocked.

His thoughts immediately switched to anxiety. From the look Dash was giving him – whether it be anger or whatever else he felt – he _knew_. He knew about his soul mark. He wasn’t oblivious to it, he didn’t have a blank arm, he hadn’t somehow missed it. He knew his soulmate was Danny, and he knew Danny had _his_ name on his respective forearm. Eyes flicking back and forth, seriously considering giving up his secret identity as Danny Phantom to flash invisible and sink through the floor, Danny prayed that Dash wouldn’t out them right there and then.

No one else in the room seemed to notice the exchange between the two, but it was just as well, because Danny wasn’t sure how well he would handle the aftermath. Being rejected as a soulmate was expected at this point, because Dash certainly didn’t look happy about it, but being rejected in front of complete strangers and his least favourite teacher? It was mortifying to think about.

Somebody rejecting their soulmate was almost unheard of because it so scarcely happened – because even then, people would rather choose a platonic relationship over nothing – but it wasn’t impossible. And Danny had heard that it hurt. But, hey, he had weathered worse from Dash already.

Unsurprisingly, Dash took a seat as far away from Danny as possible.

Danny’s left arm throbbed, and he hissed.

He didn’t want it anymore than Dash did, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t feel it.

Unable to do anything else, Danny helplessly put his head back down and looked out the side windows, wishing and hoping that the half hour would pass by quick enough.

Danny wasn’t even sure how many minutes had passed – because he had just barely achieved something halfway between sleep and consciousness – when something hit him square in the back of the head. It didn’t hurt, but he still flinched and sat up, surveying the room to see who had hit him. Mr. Lancer sat at his desk, as unobservant as usual.

Eyes probably flashing green, Danny growled under his breath.

Was it not enough? Dash Baxter was his soulmate. That alone was enough to ruin his weekend, including the entirety of the rest of his life, and to make matters worse he was probably still going to run into the Box Ghost at least three more times before the day was done. When would he catch a break?

No one in the room looked suspicious, so he put his head back down, too tired to deal with unnecessary bullshit. But then it happened again, this time more aggressively.

The paper bounced off his head and landed in front of him.

He glared down at the little paper and angrily unraveled it, finding it blank. Great. So, the criminal wasn’t even trying to send him rude messages – they were just tormenting him.

He looked around the room again.

Again, nothing.

Suddenly, something pricked at the back of his neck, and Danny turned intangible at the last moment, too frustrated to care about whether he gave someone an aneurysm. The crumpled-up piece of paper soared uselessly through him and bounced on his desk before falling to the floor. He whipped around in his desk, ready to glare at whoever was harassing him, only to meet the shocked expression of Dash. His face drained of colour quicker than he would like to admit.

“Is something wrong, boys?” Danny almost sung his praises to Mr. Lancer’s bad timing. The overweight teacher was looking at them with suspicion.

Danny answered first. “Nothing’s wrong, sir.”

Dash just sputtered behind him.

Mr. Lancer didn’t seem bothered by Dash’s lack of response, and he went back to reading his book.

■●■●■●■

The day was going to be horrible.

Obviously, from how sickened Dash felt about his soul mark, he could only imagine that Danny felt the same way. It didn’t matter that Dash had been anticipating his soul mark for his entire life – he didn’t want it anymore. When the day had started, he had been worried that the loser was finally going to get his revenge – that he was going to bare his forearm for all to see, and ruin Dash’s social life. But that didn’t happen. Instead, Dash never even saw Danny. And when forth period came, Dash felt like he was going to vomit and decided to skip instead of risking seeing Fenton.

But, karma bit him in the ass, because it was his luck that Fenton also had detention that day. Of course, he did. He had detention everyday. So, there he was, discreetly trying to get the loser’s attention – though he had no clue why – when _it_ happened.

He flicked the crumpled paper towards Fenton with perfect aim – Dash had plenty of practice – only to watch the paper soar _through_ Fenton. It was almost like, for a brief second, the lighting had been off and he wasn’t even there. He blinked. Fenton was still there. He definitely was, because then he was whipping around in his seat and glaring daggers at Dash.

As soon as Danny’s eyes met his, though, his expression dropped to something akin to how sick Dash felt. His face was white. Behind him, Mr. Lancer cleared his throat. “Is something wrong, boys?”

Danny’s response was instant. “Nothing’s wrong, sir.”

Dash choked.

The rest of detention Dash tried getting Danny’s attention.

He kept flicking crumpled-up balls of paper at the loser, and when that effort proved futile, he switched to eraser chunks. Danny’s shoulders hiked up in aggravation, but same as always, he never retaliated. He simply hunched over his desk, expression dark, and stared at his feet. Nothing Dash did seemed to convince him to just turn around and look at him, though if it did, Dash wasn’t exactly sure what he would do. He usually took pleasure in teasing Fenton, but for some reason today it seemed to have a purpose behind it. Not even getting a reaction was bothering him.

Then detention was up, and Mr. Lancer had barely opened the door when Fenton was up and out of his seat, racing out into the halls. The speed at which he disappeared would have impressed Dash, had he not witnessed it multiple times when hunting down the loser during lunch.

The jock ran right after him, leaving Mr. Lancer and everyone else in the classroom thoroughly confused.

Dash booked it down the corridor, bag hitting against his back, and slid around a corner just in time to see Fenton jump out a window, as if he had known Dash was chasing him. But the doors weren’t that far down, just around another corner, and they were on the first floor. And seriously, Dash found himself wondering – why the hell was Fenton so fucking weird? What could possibly possess him to instantly think to use a window as an escape, as if it weren’t from the movies.

Undeterred, he ran through the doors and spotted Fenton running through the back field, making a beeline for the road. Dash chased.

“Fenton!” He yelled. “Get over here!”

This only seemed to make him run faster. He got to the fence and uselessly tugged on the gate, but it was already locked. He anxiously looked back at Dash, then the fence, before changing directions and running back towards the school. Dash had to wonder why he thought of a window as a viable escape option, and not jumping a fence.

Finally, Dash had a eureka moment, and he slung his backpack off his shoulder and chucked it like a football towards Danny. He hit his mark, and Danny went crashing to the pavement.

Dash caught up to the boy, chest heaving from the run, and immediately pulled him up and held him against the nearby brick wall. Fenton winced as his head hit the brick, but Dash didn’t pay any attention, too angry that the loser had led him on a chase. “What the hell was that?” He demanded.

And then, right before his eyes, Danny disappeared.

Like, he literally disappeared.

Dash was left grasping at nothing.

■●■●■●■

The next day at school was no better. Dash told his friends to be on the lookout for Fenton – he lied and said that he wanted to give him a real good wedgie later that day, though it wasn’t exactly untrue – but no one could seem to find him. Dash himself barely caught glimpses of Fenton before turning a corner and finding that he had disappeared, like he had the day before. Not even tracking down his two loser friends and bullying them brought him about, though Dash knew that he was at school because his friends confirmed it.

But then forth period came, and even though Dash didn’t really want to have a show-down in history class and expose their soul marks, he knew that Danny wouldn’t be able to evade him then. Unless he skipped like Dash had, of course. But Dash was hoping he wouldn’t, or else he would have another detention with Mr. Lancer.

So, Dash got there early, and he took a seat in the back where Fenton usually sat.

And class started without him, with Dash having increasing belief that he had skipped – right up until the door burst open, and Mr. Lancer didn’t even flinch as he sighed.

“I’m not even going to bother with a detention.”

Dash noted that Fenton was red and looked out of breath like he had sprinted upstairs to class. And then he turned to take his seat, only to meet Dash’s eyes.

But this time, he didn’t run, because he couldn’t.

Slowly, as if anticipating his sudden doom, Danny slipped into the desk beside Dash and leaned as far to the side as he could without falling out of his chair. It was far too noticeable, but no one gave them a second glance, well used to the bully and loser dynamic between them.

The class droned on, but Dash was hyper aware of Fenton. From the moment he had gained his soul mark, his life had seemingly been a shitshow. Not only that, but Fenton had fucking disappeared, and Dash wasn’t so sure that what he had going on was human. So, great – his soulmate was Freaky Fenton with fucking ghost-hunting parents and freaky supernatural occurrences. It really couldn’t get any worse, could it?

Class ended, with Danny sitting at an angle that couldn’t possibly be comfortable, and Dash watched as everyone filed out of the room. Danny didn’t move at first, probably not wanting to get too close to Dash when he had to slip out of his desk, but it was inevitable. Mr. Lancer would not tolerate anyone who wanted to lag around in the classroom without supervision.

“Fenton, you’re coming with me,” he said. And he left no room for argument.

He grabbed the loser’s arm – making sure he had a good grip, so he wouldn’t fucking disappear into thin air again – and dragged him out of the classroom. The upstairs hallway was empty already, because no one had their locker up there, and Dash pulled Fenton into the boys’ washroom.

Aggravated at Fenton’s silence, he roughly ripped his sleeve up his arm, only to find nothing. He blinked, confusion overtaking his anger. “Where’s your soul mark?”

Fenton was suddenly a deep shade of red.

He pulled his arm away and gingerly lifted his left, rolling up his sleeve enough to show the beginning of the name ‘DASH BAXTER.’ Dash blinked again. His soul mark was on his left arm? That didn’t make any sense. The soul mark was always on the right. But of course, Freaky Fenton managed to be even weirder, and Dash felt his anger coming back.

“Oh, for fucking –”

“Look, Dash, just get it over with.” Fenton looked impossibly tiny. His eyes were downcast as he hurriedly pulled his sleeve back down.

“What?”

“I know you like to bully me, but this is a little cruel. Chasing me from detention, hunting me through the halls, making me sit by you all of fourth period – are you a fucking masochist?” Dash was a little stunned at what he was hearing. Fenton had known Dash was looking for him all day. “Just do it or not, but don’t leave me in the dark and taunt me with it.”

“What are you talking about?” Dash said, now more than a little confused.

Fenton frowned. “Rejection. Just reject me, and I swear I won’t ever bother you again.”

Dash was breathless for a moment. Rejection. He hadn’t even thought about that. Sure, he hated the idea of this loser being his soulmate – he absolutely hated Fenton – but never once had rejection crossed his mind as an option. Generally, rejection was a serious matter. “Why the hell would I reject you?” He demanded. “What the fuck?”

The loser looked as white as a sheet for second, like something horrible had just happened, but then he looked angry. “Oh, sure, rub it in my face. Of course, knowing that I’m Phantom, you’d suddenly want to be with me. Why would I expect anything less? You’re so –”

“What?” Dash’s voice was weak. “What?”

Fenton shut up immediately, eyes wide. “Wait, you don’t know?”

“What?” That was all he seemed to be capable of saying.

“Oh, shit.” And then a blue wisp flew from Fenton’s mouth, and the temperature in the bathroom dropped startlingly low. “Oh, fuck.”

■●■●■●■

Danny had never fucked up this badly. Dash stared at him with wide eyes, and he could do nothing but stare back. But then his ghost sense was going off – and he wasn’t sure whether to count it as a blessing or curse – and he didn’t really have the time to smooth things over with Dash. He easily pushed past the jock and phased through the bathroom wall, already pinning for where he sensed the ghost. Behind him, the bathroom door burst open.

“BEWARE! For it is I, the –”

Danny hit himself. “Fuck off, Boxy. Now is _not_ the time!”

“Danny, what are you doing?” Dash hissed. Danny felt him grab onto his arm where his soul mark was, and it almost burned. “You’re going to anger the ghost!”

Without thinking, Danny phased his arm out of Dash’s grip and stepped back. His poor bully looked like he was having trouble differentiating reality and fiction. “Yeah, that’s kind of the point, Dash. I’ll be fine, but you need to get out of here so that I can take care of him before he finds the photocopier room.”

“What, you’re going to square-up against a ghost?” Dash sneered.

He was turning out to be denser than Danny had originally given him credit for. Danny had practically spit out his secret identity, but Dash wasn’t connecting the dots.

So, he transformed right then.

He turned around and shot an ectoblast at the Box Ghost, knocking him to a wall. The Box Ghost flew up, undeterred, and boxes started to phase through the walls and head straight for the boys. Danny grabbed onto Dash and turned them intangible, saving them from the onslaught. He then unlatched the Fenton thermos from his belt, dodged a few more boxes, and easily sucked in the Box Ghost. No matter how he kept finding ways back into the human world – and it was kind of concerning – he was still easy to deal with. Danny just wished he hadn’t had to do it in front of his childhood bully and soulmate.

But they weren’t out of the woods just yet, because from the room down the hall, he heard Mr. Lancer yell out at the sudden commotion. “Pride and Prejudice! What is going on out here?”

Danny didn’t even think.

He latched onto Dash’s arm and turned them invisible, right before Mr. Lancer burst out from his room into the hallway. The teacher blinked and took in the chaos. Torch marks on the wall and boxes strewn haphazardly abut, cardboard mutilated beyond recognition. He then very quietly went back into his room, muttering about cutting back on the coffee and damn ghost fights.

Beside him, Dash was freaking out. He had grabbed onto Danny with an iron grip, and his eyes were bugging as he gaped. “What – how – fuck – what?”

Danny let go of his invisibility and switched back to his human form.

Dash still didn’t let go.

“Um, Dash, can you? …” Danny wasn’t sure how to eloquently word the question.

Blue eyes turned to him, and Dash’s look of shock curdled into a mix of anger an incredulity. “Oh, no – you’re coming with me!”

■●■●■●■

“What, with all due respect, the fuck was that?” Dash demanded.

Danny shrunk back at his gaze. After being dragged back to the main floor to retrieve their bags, he had then promptly been toted and thrown behind the school’s bleachers. Nobody ever loitered around the school at the end of the day, more than happy to escape the hellhole, so it was just Dash and him. He didn’t have any excuse.

Of course, he could always turn invisible and run away, but that hadn’t worked so well the first time around, so he was hesitant. Dash seemed pretty angry with him, anyway, so trying to avoid the topic wouldn’t fix anything.

“I … uh … man, you hit your head pretty hard back there – you know, with all those flying boxes … you must have hallucinated or something.” Danny smiled sheepishly. “Maybe you have a concussion?”

“Maybe I would,” Dash reasoned, “if the boxes had fucking flown _through_ us!”

“Gosh, it might be worse than I thought. You want me to call a doctor?”

“Danny!”

Danny’s eyes snapped up to Dash, shocked. Dash sneered at him. “What?”

“You just … you just used my first name.” Danny was halfway to convincing himself that _he_ had actually gotten the concussion, but then he saw how red Dash was getting, and he backtracked. “I mean, it’s nothing. It doesn’t matter. Just unusual. Um … I’m … I don’t …”

Dash groaned and ran his hands over his face. He started to pace. “Please tell me I’m dreaming. Tell me this is a nightmare. There’s no way this is happening.”

“Uh, this is a dream?” Danny offered.

“God, Fenton, you’re the worst soulmate ever.”

“Gee, thanks.” Danny’s expression was dry.

“And you’re Phantom? What fucking world is this?”

“Reality.”

“And now I have to live the rest of my life with a dead soulmate –”

“Half-dead,” Danny interjected.

“Will you just stop it?” Dash hissed. “I’m trying to convince myself this isn’t real.”

“Well, congratulations, you’re doing a swell job!”

“Well, if you suddenly had this –” he roughly jerked up his sleeve to show off his soul mark “– on your arm, then you’d be freaking out, too!”

“Well, if you have your own name as a soul mark, there might be other reasons to freak out.”

“You’re impossible!”

“This is how I cope!”

“By being annoying? Oh, great, so _this_ is what I have to look forward to for the rest of my life!”

“Rest of your life?” Danny stopped.

Dash whirled on him, angry as if it were the most obvious thing ever. “Well, I don’t know, Fenton – that’s kind of how soulmates work!”

“You’re … not going to reject me?”

The jock looked at him as if he were stupid. “Are you fucking kidding me? I’ve waited my entire life for my soul mark, and just because it’s _you_ , doesn’t mean I’m going to let you ruin this for me.”

“But I’m Phantom.” Danny looked lost.

“And that matters now because? …” Dash threw his hands up in the air. “Yeah, I get it, I looked to Phantom as a hero. I idolized him. But now that I know it’s _you_ –” His expression scrunched up into something unreadable “– that’s weird.”

Danny scowled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I’m not going to worship a Fenton,” Dash said.

“You’re sending some really mixed signals here,” Danny said. “If you don’t pound me six feet under in the next minute, I’m going to think the second apocalypse is coming.”

“Second ap – oh, forget it.” Dash went over to his bag and rummaged around before pulling out half a napkin and a pen. He scribbled something down on it and shoved it to Danny’s chest. Danny stumbled back, surprised, and looked down at the napkin. His eyes widened. “Look, if I have to think any harder about this, my brain is going to explode. That’s my number. When we’re not at each other’s throats, call me. No matter what you say, we’re figuring this out.”

■●■●■●■


End file.
